Thoughts on the Turning Aways in my life and the times

On the turning away, when our generation once looked away to distractions of our youths 

because it was easier to occupy our coming awareness with collective fantasies

than to face the budding awareness that change was indeed possible as the winds turned again in human history

whilst I perfected my D&D skills AIDS took quietly took away two of my favorite men

their lifestyles were blamed, then the sexuality then drugs then music, and then when the was nothing else to tell but the truth my father denied who or what my uncle even had been all his life, and my religion stripped away even his own soul in favor of pleasing my mother and his own mother as well.

And Freddy?

He died with cautious dignity as I stopped turning away from the reality that denial is the single hardest thing to overcome, AIDS was real, while everyone around me was fucking to their heart's content, I did not.

Now to see it today, happening all again, I see my family and friends refusing to face a reality that endangers the weak, the elderly, and our children. It has killed so many people many of whom had no clue what they did or didn't do and yet as surely as the TV evangelists who screamed at the cameras of old that this was God's punishment to the sinful

They are replaced by Media Moguls who scream the same from the anchor desks and microphones.

Ironically, I find myself at odds with why God would put up with such idiocy that I can almost accept that He really sent those plagues upon the sinful in the good old biblical days of myth.

I mean the Egyptians had it coming.

The Pharoah was fine of course, in his golden palace.

but the average working-class guy was screwed because yet another angry, vengeful deity had a point to prove according to this guy Moses.

I no longer believe in that god. I no longer wish such blind punishments upon the helpless masses with the electronic diety held firmly in their hands worshipped daily as they spend almost as much time staring at their own turning aways as I did in my youth

The State of the World According to Mike

It's June 25, 2020.

    The world as we had thought we knew it has spiraled out of control and ended for all intents and purposes. In my last blog I was concerned we would collectively forget about Covid-19 after it was over.

I was wrong. A fair number of people are already, actively trying to forget it now, in the middle of it, all the while swearing that it's over.

    The world ended a few days ago, no one actually noticed it. In fact, it's been over for a while. No one cares. REM sang their verse and went downstairs to get high or drunk.

    People will think I am kidding, but it's true. My own mother chides me for believing that this invisible disease is real as if all diseases aren't invisible until someone gets it and you have to watch them die. I cry for that person who, right up to the moment their father's hand goes cold, couldn't believe that face mask was necessary and that staying at home was ridiculous. Now she stands there, knowing that the disease is real, that her father's death was preventable and that the enormity of it all is so far past any single person's responsibility that it's almost laughable as she walks back to her car through the crowds of protesters and deniers running to and fro as if the disease was all the hoax that my 88-year-old mother believes it is. My mother does acknowledge that something is seriously wrong, but even her experienced mind cannot grasp the unreality of it all. Her dementia is localized in the fact that she is cut off from reality and society and even in denial she is living in isolation and quarantine thanks to me and her inability to age gracefully.

    I can't hold that woman who just lost her father, except in my mind. I can't even hold anyone else, because this threat has taken away our ability to touch for the fear that all of this presents. Meanwhile, our leaders squabble over tiny amounts of money while combatting public outcry while the Grim Reaper walks the halls of ERs and Retirement Homes. 

    I can only pray that somewhere in all this apocalyptic madness that someone finds a cure/treatment/vaccine before the world goes to war over a popularity contest and blames it all on Obama for starting it in the first place.